A majority of Western instructional approaches promote active learning instructional strategies influencing learners to think critically and creatively, thereby inculcating higher-order thinking skills. Cognitivism or Cognitive theory, an area of study associated with thinking skills, tries to understand the process that happens in the minds of learners that includes language learning and its use. As opposed to the behaviourist notion that language is learnt automatically by repetition and re-enforcement, the cognitive approach looks at it as a conscious and controlled thinking process that involves understanding and reasoning. With the advent of Artificial Intelligence and IoT [Internet of things], the day is not far when human beings will transcend known channels of interface to respond to machines, and communicate through a voice-enabled interface. This article is a study on the need to re-orient second language pedagogy to accommodate this futuristic reality and design a framework to promote better language acquisition. © 2021, Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.